The Dead Finger Strikes Again

I have just spent three minutes and forty-nine seconds sobbing as hard as I did three years ago, when my mother had asked for—and I had given her—death.

How do I know the precise time? Because I looked down at the YouTube clip that I chose, or that had been chosen, as the vessel for my grief. The oboe had just finished its solo in the second movement of the New World Symphony.

Is it hokey, this music? I’m never sure, but it hits me, every time. And I needed to be hit, because I had just gotten the news: the Acres might be sold.

If you know the story, feel free to skip the next paragraphs. My father and mother, whom I called Jack and Franny, bought twenty acres of forest in Southwest Wisconsin, and decided in the 1960’s to erect—with their own hands—a small wooden house.

“I needed a place to live and die, so Jack built me a house,” was my mother’s matter-of-fact comment on that decision.

Well, Jack was certainly the Master Builder, with a reverential nod to another Norwegian, Henrik Ibsen. That applied in the States; when Jack and Franny sailed their 27-foot Norwegian fishing boat through Europe, the captain then became Jack the Skipper.

But every story, especially in this family, has many sides. I was conscripted during the winter to sand floorboards from lumber scavenged from a decommissioned Air Force base. That summer we poured the foundation and put in the floor. During the following winter, I sanded the boards for the ceiling.

What emerged was a lovely house that absolutely everybody loved to come visit but no one in their right mind would want to buy. People, it seems, like house with bedrooms, if you can imagine such a thing. They define pulling out a bed from an uncomfortable sofa—which is what Jack did—or sleeping in a bunk in front of the picture window—which is what Franny did—as camping.

It was completely idiosyncratic, as unconventional as they were. The spice rack lived up at the ceiling, unless pulled down by a rope and a pulley. There were only two closets; the bathroom was small and became miniscule when Franny added the apartment.

My parents had a genius for friendships—the house saw many wonderful dinners, parties. Jack would be standing in the kitchen, aquavit in hand, beaming out at whomever it was who had come. He was about to start the Chinese cooking; all the ingredients were at hand, neatly chopped or sliced or measured out in little containers. It was an hour of preparation, five minutes of cooking, and a leisurely 40 minutes of the best Chinese food I expect to have in my life.

For forty years my mother lived in the house, and she chose to die there as well. Right—so we did that, emptied out the house after she died, closed the door and went away.

I have, in fact, made a small profession of saying good-bye to the place. I did it first three days after she died, that gorgeous May of 2010. I did it a year later, when we were going to put the house on the market, and needed to “showcase” it for the realtor.

Well, we either did a lousy job of it, or the above peculiarities of the house were off-putting—nobody wanted to buy it. So when the Morning Glories—those wonderful women who had cared for my mother in her last year—decided, with the Zanas, to hold a party at the house, I decided to go up to Wisconsin, and say goodbye, yet again.

It was not an easy trip; the weather was cold and rainy, the house seemed sad and unkempt, there were many ghosts.

Perhaps literally.

Bess and Tibor came out, bringing us food, wine, and excellent company. The talk turned metaphysical, and Bess related how she always associated her mother with deer. She was talking with her sister at the time, and then she rose, went to the window, peered and saw…

…not a single deer.

No, she saw fourteen.

“Yes, but have you tried that in Manhatt…”

That’s when the smoke detector went off.

Nobody was smoking; nobody was cooking. I took the damn thing—still shrieking—outside, where there was a strong wind.

Wouldn’t stop….

I was almost fearful, taking the battery out, that it would still keep going.

It didn’t, of course. Two days later, we had the party; I played the saddest and yet most regenerative music I knew. We bid our hosts good night, and began doing the wrap-up.

“Interesting night,” said Eric. “Wonder what Franny would have thought of it?”

The porch light went out.

“You ever put that battery in the smoke detector?” I asked Eric.

“Nah, and we’re not gonna.”

Seemed sensible.

And so the house has sat empty, or rather full of the memories, the love, the occasional spats, the tears and the kisses and mostly—how I miss it—the laughter of those forty years of life and death and grief and joy. And now someone—perhaps—has been chosen to live in it, and fill it up with their own life.

I know grief, as Franny did. You let it out, you wail, you feel better until you need to do it again. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

“But where will they live when they come back,” I sobbed.

Felt real as I sobbed it.

Right, get to work. Sat down in my chair, put on my earphones, clicked the arrow to start the Dvorak, howled for 3:49 minutes. Then I started the post:

I have just spent three minutes and forty-nine seconds sobbing as hard as I did three years ago, when my mother had asked for—and I had given her— death.

Then the computer went dead. No cursor. I could see everything, but there was no cursor, and the computer wouldn’t respond to keyboard commands or typing.

I did the only thing I could do—a forced shut down. As I did that, my iPad, which was charging through the computer, flicked on. I noted the time.

11:23

My mother was born on 11 /23 /1920.